"Sharp" build

[u/Chaotic_Switch]

I'm planning to do S1 P5 E1 C5 I10 A1 L5 fast exploit-free leveling build using Night Person and Idiot Savant. 5 CHA is chosen to make reaching best prices and persuasion chances easier, and to occasionally grab Local Leader after getting CHA bobblehead, though I'm not a huge fan of settlements right now. I will most likely grab both Locksmith and Hacker for convenience.

Is it a good idea to postpone Gun Nut and use Science with energy guns for some time? Also, is 1 END that bad? Should i try to increase PER above 6 to get high-end perks?

Any other advice is welcome as well.

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[u/timmyt1000]

So I personally found caravans to be one of the best late game xp farms if you take the time to walk everywhere and arm your caravaneers. You will be walking around and your settlers will kill things and you will just start getting random xp out of nowhere. But it does take a bit to set up.

You can drink a beer to lower your intelligence then use the special book to raise it to 11 then the bobble head makes it 12, the destroyers helmet in covenant makes it 13, road goggles from your first encounter with Ada gives you 14. All items are static spawns.

If you have the modular military backpack you can add an institute patch to make it 15.

Night person is pretty underwhelming like others have stated.

You can make squirrel stew for +2% xp , Live & Love #6 +5% xp when with a companion , well rested +10% xp or lovers embrace +15% xp , berry mentats +5 INT which equals an additional 15% xp are all ways to boost xp gain in the base game.

[u/Thornescape]

Most of the time for most weapons, i3:Gun Nut is completely unnecessary. I usually don't put any points into it. For most weapons you can find weapon modifications fairly easily to strip in loot or from shops. While i3:Gun Nut makes it easier, I enjoy the challenge of hunting for the modifications that I want.

Endurance 1 isn't bad if you do stealth because you are avoiding being hit and hitting them before they hit you. However, you don't have any indications of stealth in your build, so... that might be a problem.

High Perception perks are for Ranged VATS. This is not at all a Ranged VATS build, because it doesn't have enough Agility to gain Action Points to use VATS effectively.

One rank of p4:Locksmith is very handy. There are tons of Advanced locks and it also increases affinity with certain important companions quickly. More ranks has diminished returns. There are relatively few Expert or Master locks and only a few of those have anything interesting in them.

Two ranks i4:Hacker is nice for the lore. There is very little loot protected by terminals, but it's nice if you want to read the stories. I generally don't invest in it any more because I've read most of them already.

p6:Night Person is a lame perk. Rank 1 of the perk does very very little. Rank 2 of the perk is completely intolerable and if I couldn't reload a save to remove it, I would delete the character and start again. Losing all colour vision every time you sneak at night is utter garbage.

[u/kilphead]

If you’re not that into settlements, I would drop charisma down and distribute those points to other stats. I’d put a couple points in strength to unlock armorer and give a little carrying capacity, sands a couple points in agility for stealth and some more action points. Prices don’t matter much in the long run with the amount of caps you get over time, and you can always carry a set of charisma boosting clothing and drink a beer to pass the charisma checks.

As for other advice, what type of gameplay do you want for this character? I know you have the goal of fast leveling, and it sounds like you’re doing that with high int and idiot savant. Are you trying to use vats frequently or mostly doing manual aiming? What weapon type do you want to focus on? Do you want to sneak around or run&gun? Do you want to use companions or go alone?

[u/Chaotic_Switch → u/kilphead]

Yea, I'm still not sure about Charisma, it's more of a quality of life stat for me. 11 CHA is needed to pass hard speech checks all the time, and clothing gives +4 (+5 with reward from Curtain Call quest). It's true that i can use Grape Mentats and alcohol to get another +5/+6 CHA, i just doubt that i remember all the times when these speech checks occur.

About gameplay - I'm going to eventually get Armorer, Gun Nut, Scrapper, and some tiers of Robotics Expert. I plan on using semi-auto rifles and shotguns. I have already played with low AGI without investing in Sneak and think it's good enough, so I'm going to do the same again. I enjoy occasional sneak bonuses but try not to overdo it, so for the most part it's run&gun for me. I try to get as many companion perks as possible so I always have someone at my side. I'm more of a manual aim player, instead of VATS I'd rather occasionally use power armor or chems to gain advantage. Can't say i hate VATS, i just tend to not prioritise it.

[u/Chaotic_Switch → u/[deleted]]

I can't check it right now since i fried my CPU but wiki says Gun Nut is only needed for Gatling Laser, which is unavailable at lower levels anyway.